Offspring (37 page)

“Who else do you have in mind besides Foxglove and Sufur?” Gretchen asked.

“Um...well...”

“That’s what I thought,” Gretchen said.

The rest of the ride was silent. Gray rain washed over the windows, and below Kendi saw golden glimmers of lights set out on balconies in groups of three. He tried to summon up some holiday spirit, but it was hard. In addition to everything else, this would be the first Three Drink Night since Ara had died.

They arrived home to a houseful of delicious kitchen smells. Lucia emerged from the kitchen holding a wooden spoon and gave Kendi a welcome-home hug. Her abdomen pressed against his like a small basketball. Harenn sat on the couch with her feet up, both hands on the mound of her stomach.

“The cow gives you welcome,” she said.

Kendi laughed. “You’re not a cow. You’re a beautiful woman.”

“Flatterer. I feel like something that washed up on a beach and could not flop back into the water.”

“It won’t be long,” Ben said. “Can I bring you anything?”

“A bigger bladder.”

Kendi leaned down to kiss her cheek, something he would never have considered doing even a year ago. “We deeply appreciate everything you’re doing, Harenn. Every moment.”

“You may prove your devotion by bringing me three glasses of egg nog.”

“I’ll get them,” Ben said with a laugh, and went into the kitchen. He emerged a moment later with four small glasses on a tray. Brown nutmeg floated on the white-gold nog. “The fourth one’s for me,” he said. “I have to check my messages. I’ll be right back.”

“Bedj-ka is playing sims in your office,” Harenn said. “But his time is up, so you may kick him off.”

“Got it.” He left.

“How do
you
feel, Kendi?” Harenn asked.

“Perfect,” Kendi said. “I could run wind-sprints. If it weren’t raining outside, I probably would, just to get my blood moving again.”

“You won’t be running anywhere,” Tan said. “You’re staying under lock and key until the police catch whoever’s trying to kill you.”

Kendi sighed. “I figured as much. It may be for my own good, but—”

A cry came from Ben’s study, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Kendi darted out of the living room and got there first. He found Ben standing in the room with Bedj-ka. The glass of egg nog had shattered on the hardwood floor. Both of Ben’s hands were over his mouth and his blue eyes were filled with horror. Bedj-ka was pale.

“What’s wrong?” Kendi demanded as Tan, Gretchen, and Lucia crowded into the hallway behind him.

Ben pointed at the data pad on his desk. The floating display showed a text story from a newsfeed. The headline read,
Salman Reza’s Grandson Revealed as Son of Irfan
.

“A secret dies when it’s revealed.”

—Irfan Qasad

Senator Salman Reza set her teacup on the coffee table with a firm
clack
. A composite hologram of her grandchildren—Ben, Tress, and Zayim—wobbled slightly. “So it’s true.”

“Yeah.” Ben was sitting on her sofa next to Kendi, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. Harenn and Lucia had chairs of their own. Wanda Petrie steepled her fingertips on a loveseat. Tan and Gretchen stood guard at either entrance to the room. “Grandma, I don’t know what to do. I need your help.”

“You’re the biological son of Irfan Qasad and Daniel Vik,” Salman said. “No hoax. No joke.”

“The truth is the truth,” Kendi said. “It doesn’t change when you repeat it.”

“I’m just trying to get my mind around the concept,” Salman said. “My god, Ben—this is...this is...I don’t
know
what this is.”

“A miracle,” Lucia said. “People are already pointing out that the news about Ben has come out right at the time young Silent are re-entering the Dream. How can that be a coincidence? Ben and these children Harenn and I are carrying—true Children of Irfan—are arriving to lead us out of the Despair and into a new age of peace and prosperity.”

Harenn clasped her hands protectively over her heavy abdomen. “I will not allow my child to be exploited by the Church of Irfan, Lucia.”

“Exploited?” Lucia said with uncustomary heat. “Is that how you see my church? “s a bunch of exploitative fanatics? Never mind how many orphans we clothe and feed, never mind how many people we shelter and guide. We are exploitative fanatics because we do these things in the name of spirituality.” He voice rose. “I am also carrying a child of Irfan. Do you think I want
my
baby to be exploited?”

“I did not mean to imply any such thing,” Harenn said. “But I fear there will be many people who want to get their hands on our children, and not all of them work for the good of society.”

“I am not—”

“Please,” Salman interrupted. “Please. This is no time for arguing, my loves. We need to figure out what to do.”

“The newsfeeds are carrying nothing but stories about Ben,” Kendi said. He waved his data pad. “My public mailbox is so full of requests and demands for interviews that it’s run out of memory, and the Council of Irfan has been ringing us without stop. It’s only a matter of time before someone ferrets out our home address. The neighbors knew not to tell people—they didn’t want strangers sniffing around the neighborhood anymore than we did—but now...”

“I’m not talking to the Children or the feeds,” Ben said. “I’m not talking to
anybody
. They don’t own me.”

“You don’t have to talk to anyone you don’t want to, Ben,” Petrie said. “But do you understand what this means for thousands—millions—of people? Not everyone reveres Irfan Qasad as a goddess—”

“Human incarnation of the divine,” Lucia corrected.

A—but they do view her as a symbol of hope and power. Your presence would bring hope and happiness to a great many people.”

“And boost the Senator’s polls?” Tan said evenly.

“Yes,” Petrie said blandly. “Yes, it would.”

“You want me to endorse your campaign, don’t you?” Ben said tiredly.

Salman leaned forward in her chair. Behind her, the orange lizards chirped softly in their cage. “I’m going to lose the election, Ben. I imagine my polls have increased a bit with this news—”

“Eleven percent,” Petrie said, tapping at her data pad.

A—but it won’t be enough to carry me through unless you specifically endorse me.”

“Didn’t take her long to go from stunned to shrewd, did it?” Gretchen said
sotto voce
to Tan.

“I don’t know, Grandma,” Ben said. “I think you’re the best candidate for the job, and I’m not saying that just because you’re my grandmother, but I...I’m not good at public speaking. It makes me sick just thinking about it. I don’t want to be a celebrity.”

“You are one whether you want it or not, my duck,” Salman said gently. “The genie is out of the bottle, and we can’t put it back in.” She sighed. “You were hoping that I somehow could make it go away because I’m a Senator. I don’t have that power, love. I wish I did, because I don’t like seeing you upset or in pain. I want to see you a happy father with his new children—my great-grandchildren. And you can be. Just because you’re famous doesn’t mean you can’t be happy, too.”

“You could move off-planet,” Gretchen pointed out. “There are lots of places where no one would recognize you.”

“Bellerophon is my home,” Ben said. “I’ve never lived anywhere else. I don’t want to leave.”

“Then help me make it a better place,” Salman said earnestly. “Not only that—if I were in the governor’s office, I’d be in a better position to run interference for you and the children. “ll of them.”

There was a long pause. At last, Ben said in a barely-audible voice, “All right.”

Salman and Petrie both sagged slightly in equal relief. “Thank you,” Salman said. “Ben, you’ve just made history in this room.”

Kendi set his own data pad on the coffee table next to the grandchildren hologram. “What I want to know,” he said, “is who dropped the news? Lots of people knew about the young Silent re-entering the Dream and I don’t think we’ll ever trace that leak, but only four people knew about Ben’s family—me, Lucia, Harenn, and Ben. And we didn’t tell
anyone
.”

“It must have been whoever stole that disk from Lucia,” Tan said. “There’s no other explanation.”

“We’ve gone over that before,” Kendi said. “And it still doesn’t make sense. The Days were almost certainly working for Foxglove when they found that medical file, but it’s also highly likely that they didn’t have Foxglove’s permission to blackmail Ben—too much potential damage to his campaign if anyone found out. The information about Ben would only hurt Foxglove. He must have ordered the Days killed so they wouldn’t leak the info and destroy his chances. Either his operative stole the disk from Lucia, or it really was a random theft.”

“If it were a random theft,” Lucia said, “and the thief was the news leak, all this would have happened long ago.”

“Remember how we decided the mugger was someone who knew where Lucia was headed?” Harenn said. “I still think it a sound theory.”

“Except how would the person have known where Lucia was going?” Kendi objected. He picked up the hologram of Ben and his cousins and toyed with the base. “It’s all tangled up.”

“It seems a paradox,” Harenn agreed. “It would appear Salman’s enemies stole the information, but they are also the least likely people to reveal it. Either the person who killed the Days was also the person who attacked Lucia—in which case the information should not have come out because it would hurt Foxglove—or the two events were unrelated—in which case the information should not have come out at all or should have come out long ago.”

“Yeah,” Kendi said, still playing with the hologram base. “It’s as if someone...someone knew...” There was a
click
inside Kendi’s head, and a cold finger slid down his spine. Moving with great care, he set the hologram back on the table next to his data pad. His brand new data pad. Slowly, unwillingly, he turned on the sofa and faced Wanda Petrie in her loveseat.

“It was you,” he said.

Petrie stared at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“The data pad you gave me is bugged,” Kendi said with icy calm. “Just like the hologram Tell Brace gave me for that stupid game. The day you first visited our house was the day Ben told me about his parentage, and the data pad you gave me was sitting right there on the table. You heard every goddam word. You knew about the plan to break into the Days’ house because you overheard Ben and Lucia talking about it while I was at the Taper rally
and I had left my pad at home
. You ran down to the Days’ house ahead of Lucia, broke into the house, and killed them with a neuro-pistol.” He turned to Tan. “Don’t people who fire neuro-pistols get temporary palsy in their trigger hand for a few days afterward?”

Tan nodded grimly. “Especially when it’s set high enough to kill.”

“And Magic Wanda over there was dropping things left and right at the speeches just after the Days were killed,” Gretchen said. “I remember that.”

“This is—” Petrie began.

“You were trying to find the file about Ben on their house computer when Lucia showed up and scared you off,” Kendi interrupted. “You wanted that file bad, and you knew Lucia would go back to our house after she finished with the Days’ computer, so you hid and waited. Once she got close enough, you hit her and stole the disk.”

“Ridiculous,” Petrie said. Her face and voice were perfectly calm. “Why would I do such a thing, Kendi? Listen to what you’re saying.”

“You were all but frothing at the mouth that day in the flitcar when Grandma’s polls really started to slide,” Kendi continued relentlessly. “You said you’d do anything to ensure she won the election. What exactly was that awful job Grandma rescued you from? The one where your boss wouldn’t pay for medical procedures? The one you clearly didn’t want to talk about? Tan here has police contacts. Perhaps she could find out, if you don’t want to tell us.”

“She was a sex worker,” Salman said quietly. “I knew that when I hired her. One of Wanda’s clients...hurt her, and her employer refused to pay for the healing. Then he fired her because he said the incident was her fault. The sex industry lost a worker, and I gained a publicist.”

“A fanatic publicist,” Harenn spat.

“It wasn’t like that,” Petrie said. Her voice was tremulous. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But the Senator
has
to win. Ched-Pirasku is weak, and Foxglove is a lying, cheating son of a bitch.”

“He was the client who hurt you, wasn’t he?” Kendi said with a flash of insight. “You aren’t so much committed to seeing Grandma win as to seeing
him
lose.”

The statement cracked the last of Petrie’s calm. “You don’t know what it was like,” she cried. “Watching his polls climb higher and higher because of his lying and cheating and scheming. Seeing his smug face on the feeds every goddammed day. Standing by as he breaks the news of children re-entering the Dream. I killed the Days, yes—but they were filthy extortionists distracting Kendi from his work for the Senator. Thousands of lives will change for the better with the Senator in office. The Days just didn’t measure up to her purpose.”